Tag: parenting

I have had a burning desire to write for days but feel like I have absolutely fuck all to say. I feel pretty void of meaning at the moment and am still struggling to commit. Writing a big ol’ blog post about self selecting to partake in changing the world kinda put more pressure on the public nature of this ‘awakening’ shit.

Eughhhhhh!!

Here is the score.

I can commit to keeping the baby alive and happy, cleaning the house and feeding us decent stuff and going somewhere a few times a week. I can maintain this with ease. Some days the baby doesn’t make it possible for me to feed us and for me to shower too, though. Sometimes I can shower and dry my hair. Others a very quick wash is managed. Lately I’ve been trying to follow a 30 day yoga program and there is zero relaxation to the sudden smell of poo and a child jumping all over your plank. But I’m ploughing on. Some days are better than others. Most nights lately I can’t step away from her when she sleeps, because she wakes. I can’t make too much sound near her, because she wakes. Daytime naps are much the same. Some weeks I can put the bins out. Some weeks it’s easy to get up the town and buy nicer groceries for better meals. Occasionally I can make an effort with looking after myself more externally with clothes or make up or hair straighteners. Some days I need to see other adults and choose between that and any other of the above in a variety of arrangements but I can never do all the things I want or need. Sorting out the house that still doesn’t feel very loved? The laundry? The garden? Crikey. Writing? fuck… I don’t even know where to add that in, because I used to have a set sort of method for encouraging the motivation to do it. Ive had loads of exciting ideas bubbling up but they dramatically disappear whenever my brain finds reasons that I can make space to use them.

The method, or recipe, doesn’t work anymore.

Life gets in the damn way of self care. Or do we get in our own way? Or is it both?

I need to develop better strategies for maximising the time I do have to look after myself and cultivate ‘space’ in my heart and mind for well being. For ‘being’ something other than chaos and mother and despondent frumpy whinging bitch.

So tonight I hid my phone under the sofa, put some really chilled music on and just immersed myself in engaging with and observing my daughter. I did it really mindfully and paid attention to my breath, to my body. I employed all my senses to experience the whole thing completely and I ended up in floods of tears, just completely overwhelmed by how big the space in my heart is when I let myself sink into it. I felt so much joy just totally focusing on being as present in that beautiful moment with her. I saw her shift too, like she felt me change gears. Like she felt me grind still and just feel calm in a way I don’t all that often.

It’s so hard to be alone for most of the time whilst looking after such a small, demanding, bright and chaotic tiny human. It’s so so hard to do that whilst trying to meaningfully look after yourself. Every ‘technique’ I have for cultivating better self care has always required freedom and space and time to my self and other things that I just can’t bloody have all that often and it occasionally feels like a prison…

..but I’m reminded of what else I had before that I’m not using now and that’s my expansive heart and mind working together and for me, not against. The story I’ve been telling myself is of feeling trapped and waiting to look after myself when I’m more able but that’s not serving me. That’s a bullshit bail out excuse to avoid putting in work. I had years of training and working at being solutions focused, supporting people to change their lives their way. Working with what they were good, building on what they had to start with… that’s all I need to do…

I need to see things differently, maximise what I do have, find ways to adapt what I used to do to my new ‘routine’ (or lack of). What’s that goal bollocks people use? SMART goals is it? I need to do some of that! I also have to Google what it bloody stands for because I can’t remember.

My life has felt like it’s been on hold for two years. Just waiting and waiting and waiting for one thing after the other and then another and another. Always waiting. I need some more ‘now’ in my life. I don’t need massive things to change, I just need some awareness and some presence. I need to create some space to stop waiting and to start being. Being what? Being whole. I feel so spread out. I don’t want to be someone else,.I don’t feel like I’m not good enough, I don’t feel like I have to wait for happiness and all that crap, I just feel completely tapped out from never being here. Right now.

I just want to whine and whine in this blog, man. So very inspiring!! I don’t like writing on my phone. I want a pen and paper or my laptop but for paper I need light, which wakes her ladyship and the keyboard is too loud, which wakes her ladyship. If I try and write when she’s awake she steals the pen or becomes upset if I won’t give her the laptop. I need to let the writing swallow me up or the words don’t flow and I simply can’t just ignore her like that. Having people in my space and having to talk to them and prepare to go and have space alone just puts too much pressure and stress onto what used to feel like a fulfilling, inspired and enjoyable writing experience.

I’m feeling rather burned out at the moment I think! The chiropractor I’ve been seeing has been doing lots of work on my shoulders today so perhaps I’m emotionally feeling the physical burden being release from my body.

Permission granted to myself to end this blog without feeling like I’ve said something meaningful. It’s ok to say ‘fuck, having an intense time trying to navigate life and making it work for me’. Maybe next post I will have worked on some strategies to share.

So far she’s woken up twice crying just because I was sat up to write in the dark instead of laying down…I can’t write lying down either… It doesn’t flow. Nothing really feels like it flows at the moment!